


All That Goes Unsaid

by TheWritingSquid



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, DMC Gen Week, Gen, Grief, Post-Canon, Post-DMC 5, Some angst, Vergil and Trish go on a road trip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 14:09:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20027086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWritingSquid/pseuds/TheWritingSquid
Summary: Vergil and Trish travel together to Red Grave City to recover Luce & Ombra, once Sparda's twins pistols, lost in the first battle with Urizen.





	All That Goes Unsaid

**Author's Note:**

> In which I can't help but start ANOTHER FIC haha RIP.
> 
> I've had this one in my head for a while, and it fit well with DMC Gen Week. Day 3's prompt is Grief / Sleep, and this has both!

The sizzling of oil and food in a pan would be an abnormal sound in the Devil May Cry at any given time, but when Trish catches it in the wee hours before dawn, she knows something's up. Dante doesn't cook, for a start, and the oven was broken when she tried it with Lady. She's still got the keys from Dante's three-month-long absence (it used to be, she wouldn't have needed them anyway, but Vergil is obsessive about locked doors), and while this may spell the doom of her plans to prank Dante, she suspects whatever is happening might turn out even more interesting. So she slips the key in, pushes the door open, and slinks inside without a sound. 

The office smells of onions, and it's enough to water her mouth. She stalks towards the kitchens, preparing a multitude of quips to let Dante know he's gonna have to prepare a whole feast for them now that his secret is out… and finds Vergil bent over the pan, staring at it in such intense concentration his eyes might be what's heating the damn food.

She's still not used to seeing him like this--so human--and it's hard to overlay Nelo Angelo over the man before her, navy cotton pants and slippers in his feet, bare chested (she would not have expected this to be a family thing), part of his hair slicked back but most of it falling in long bangs over his face. He doesn't look put together in the slightest, and once the thought crosses her mind, she notices small purpluish lines where his armour once dug into his skin. She doesn't know that much about Vergil (only what Lady would say; Dante flat out refused to talk about him) but she can't imagine him flaunting his scars like this. He clearly expects to be alone, and if someone was to happen upon him, so delightfully unprepared, now wouldn't that leave him flustered? 

Trish grins, leans against the doorway, and exclaims "Onions past midnight! Now that's even weirder than Dante's eating habits."

Vergil startles, hits the pan's handle, and sends oil and onions flying, most of it across his chest. He hisses as he whirls around, landing a withering glare on her.

"T-Trish."

"That's why people don't cook shirtless," she says, gesturing at the quickly-healing burn marks. 

It's hard to tell in the dim light of the oven, but she's pretty sure Vergil grows several shades of red deeper. He scoffs and brushes the onions away before slicking the most of his bangs back, tilting his chin up, and squaring his shoulders.

"Why are you here?" he demands.

"Meant to prank Dante. Now I kinda want a snack.” She winks. Vergil’s eyes narrows. He thinks he’s being mocked, and he’s not entirely wrong. Trish flicks her hair and pushes herself away from the doorframe. “Most people sleep at this hour.”

“Indeed.” He turns away from her, turning off the oven and casting his gaze about until he finds a towel to clean himself with. This lets him move away from the oven’s overhead lamp, and she has the distinct impression he’s doing it on purpose, placing himself in partial darkness where he’d be harder to examine. He sets the towel down again, and adds, “Yet here you are.”

Trish laughs. “I never sleep. What's your excuse?"

He shuts down, glaring at her in silence without answering. Trish ignores the cold anger and strides deeper into the room, heaving herself up on a piece of unused counter. Dante would've provided a joke excuse that has nothing to do with the truth, but beyond that they're really alike about trauma: both are close-mouthed and resent it being brought up. Trish doesn't really care if Vergil wants to stew in his. He's not her responsibility, and she hasn’t forgotten the pain of transforming into Cavaliere Angelo. It's hard not to be curious, though. There's no one else who understands the way Mundus marks you, and Vergil has it etched into his skin. She's caught him off guard, and it'd be a shame to waste that.

"So, you really like onions and woke up with a craving?"

Vergil gaze is still on her, evaluating, calculating. He doesn't answer, stays still like a deer in headlights, unsure how to get out of this situation. Dante has nailed down avoidance a lot better than he has, that's for sure. He’d have danced his way out with a few jokes by now.

“Can’t wait to tell Dante about this! He thinks you eat a lot of super fancy things while he’s not looking.”

“Don’t.”

Finally a word out of him! She just had to threaten to reveal his secret, apparently. Trish smiles at him and lets him flounder.

“They’re not for eating,” Vergil mutters.

Her eyebrows shoot up. Now _ that _is even more peculiar. “You woke up in the middle of the night to cook onions with no intentions of eating them?”

“I--” Vergil stops. Maybe he finally realises how absurd his story is--how ridiculous, that he’s here cooking onions like it’s a crime. He sighs, and his gaze slides to the pan. “I’m learning. To cook.” He dares her to comment with one withering look, then squares his shoulders. “Unfortunately, my brother has never taken it upon himself to learn basic survival skills and seems intent on relying on others for nourishment, so it falls upon me to do so. I refuse to be this dependant.”

She can’t help but laugh. It’s a sensible goal, but he’s acting so prissy about it. “I’ll remember you can prepare us onions when the next demon apocalypse rolls around, then. But only past midnight, if no one’s looking.”

Vergil doesn’t respond. Dante always says he’s practically living with a ghost, and she’s starting to understand why. He goes back to cleaning the kitchen, gliding silently between counter, table, and oven, erasing the traces of his nighttime lessons. She watches for a time, and if it bothers him, he’s resolved to say nothing about it. Maybe this won’t be as entertaining as she’d initially expected; he clearly has no interest in prolonged banter with her.

Trish is about to slide down the counter and return to her nefarious plans regarding Dante’s door when Vergil surprises her. He’s stored everything back where it belongs, and apart from the faint odour of onions, there’s no clue left of what he’d been up to. Instead of leaving her behind, however, he stops in front of her.

“You had Luce e Ombra with you, when we fought.”

It takes a moment for Trish to remember he means when they first tried to take on Urizen. She’s never heard Vergil reference to his split selves and has always assumed he would speak of them as different entities. “I did.”

They’re lost, now, knocked away during the battle or taken by Urizen. She’s tried looking for the two pistols in the debris of Red Grave City, but she’s had no luck in that regard. It rankles her. Dante had entrusted them to her, like the Sparda, and she lost both the same day. The Sparda fused into Dante along with the Rebellion, so she’ll ever see it again, but she’d hoped she could find Sparda’s modified handguns again. To her knowledge, they are--along with the Yamato--the only piece of weaponry from the Legendary Dark Knight left. It’s probably why Vergil is asking, too.

“I thought you didn’t like guns,” she adds, quirking an eyebrow at him. “Surely, you’re not thinking of emulating Dante’s style.”

A shocked chuckle escapes Vergil at the thought. “A foolish thought, if there ever was one,” he says. “You cared for these, did you not?”

His voice has slipped into a softer undertone, and the shift surprises Trish enough to kill her impulsive to reach for a snippy reply and bury her frustration at losing them. Her existence is tied into Sparda’s old war as surely as the twins’; she was a tool for vengeance, an artificial demon created only to kill Dante. She wouldn’t even exist had Sparda not defied and sealed Mundus away, and to be entrusted with a part of his legacy had been an honour. It’d felt like Dante had made her part of the family, in his own implicit way.

“I did,” she said again, but this time she’s solemn, and she meets Vergil’s eyes. He’s frowning, and she knows he disapproves. He hasn’t had decades like Dante to get used to her face, and she’s caught him scowling at her more than once. He probably thinks it’s utter heresy that she was allowed to have them.

“You had the Sparda, too,” he says.

Trish crosses her arms. “You got a problem with that, then suck it up.”

His lips thin and he lets out a small _ hm_, before shaking his head. “The Sparda was no simple sword. It chose its wielders. I find myself ill-placed to argue with its decision. If it accepted you…” He gestures vaguely midair. “I know where Luce e Ombra are--or where they were before the Qliphoth collapsed, at any rate. If you wish to recover them, seek me out.”

He’s taken a single step towards the exit before she leaps down the counter and blocks his path. Her heart is pounding, and she struggles to regain enough composure to smirk and lean in the doorway, blocking his path. “You’re right there,” she says. “Pack up your onions for rations and let’s go, no? It’s not like you’re gonna get any sleep tonight.”

It’s mostly a guess--she has no proof he can’t sleep, but it makes sense, if he’s up at strange hours to cook. Vergil flashes her a glare, which she takes as confirmation that she’s right. This whole learning to cook story is a cover for something else--something she’s willing to let him keep wrapped and hidden. 

“Very well. I will find suitable clothing and prepare myself. Would you…” His body stiffens with pride as he hesitates and adds, “Would you write a note for Dante while I do so? He pretends he does not care for my whereabouts, but I can hardly buy groceries without eliciting questions.”

Dante’s worried his brother will vanish again, they all know that, but she wouldn’t have expected Vergil to catch on, and even less to care. It’d be easy to let them off the hook about this, but Trish has always preferred to shake people up a bit.

“Can you blame him? ‘My twin is alive and I don’t have to kill him again’ must have been pretty damn high on his list of life miracles.”

Vergil turns to ice. He freezes there, and she can practically feel the waves of cold coming off from him. Trish can’t help but roll her eyes, and since she doesn’t expect any proper answer, she moves to dismiss the topic. He surprises her once again, thawing ever so slightly to speak through gritted teeth.

“Hence the note.”

He leaves it at that, pushing past her to climb the stairs leading to the second floor of the _ Devil May Cry_. Trish doesn’t push the issue. Vergil isn’t blameless in his own disappearance, but she knows more than anyone how impossible it was to escape Mundus, once caught there. There’s a difference between shaking people up and being cruel to them, and she likes to think she knows where the line is. 

Besides, it sounds like she’s about to spend more time with Vergil than she ever expected. Red Grave City isn’t next door, and she doubts they’ll get to the pistols right away. Either way, it’d be a good occasion to scope out the ruins and see if any pockets of demons have returned since they finished cleaning up with Nero, so she mentally adds an extra day to the mission.

Trish makes her way to the desk. It takes her forever to find an actual pen (and it’s a marker, really), and she rips a discarded pizza box to write on.

_ Vergil thinks he can find Ombra and Luce. We’re leaving for Red Grave City for a few days. I’ll keep an eye on him. _

_ I’m sure you won’t miss King Cerberus for a while. Just take those two brothers out for a spin if you miss the elemental goodness. _

_ Trish_

She smirks, knowing full well he’d hate being reminded he always left Agni and Rudra behind, too annoyed at their constant jabbering. She’d started borrowing Dante’s Devil Arms while he was gone, experimenting with them, and while Dante grumbles about her rifling through his things, he’s never told her to stop. Trish gives the marker a quick flip, sets it down, then seeks out King Cerberus. She suspects the proud demon will resist its new wielder at first, but that’s always been a part of the fun, and most of them hate going unused even more than they do fighting for her.

Maybe one day she'll like one of these as much as she did wielding the Sparda, but she doubts it. It'll be good to have Luce and Ombra back.

** **

###

** **

With every new hour spent riding a motorcycle, arms wrapped around Trish's waist while her hair flies in his face and his coat flaps in the wind, Vergil regrets his offer a little more. It had felt like the honourable thing to do; he refuses to let his father's pistol remain lost in the ruins of Red Grave City, but he has no use for them, and Trish… He doesn't like her. She wears their mother's face despite shapechanging powers, like it belongs to her, and she knows more of what happened to him than he's willing to accept. It's a small blessing that she didn't exist while Mundus was still breaking him apart, but she nonetheless carries more memories of Nelo Angelo than he cares for. He has wiped the worst of it from himself--sliced it out with the Yamato--but he cannot erase it from her. No more, really, than he can heal the faint scars along his body, dim purple lines where skin and armour fused.

It had seemed wise, at the time, to rid himself of the memories associated with Mundus, to carve out any sign of defeat. Now… Vergil isn't so sure. But if he's honest, it's more what _ became _ of these nightmares that he misses. Nights have become hollow, emptied of Griffon's rambles and Shadow's protective weight against his. He can't sleep without them, and the weakness is infuriating but familiar. It's an ache he has known at a much younger age, when he kept subconsciously perking his ears for Dante's snores, a staple of his nights since he'd been born. He's grieving, and while he recognizes that now, it's not any easier than before. He put so much effort into returning to life--in retrieving his power and rebuilding himself--yet when he's not fighting with Dante, he's forgotten how to enjoy it.

The uncertainties and lack of drive are the most difficult part of this. Maybe it explains why the idea of subjecting himself to Trish's prolonged company had been appealing: it gives him an objective, something to work towards, a focus to help ignore the way his thoughts spin and spin and won't leave him alone. At least now he knows he's doing the right thing. He may not like Trish, but he respects her strength. The Sparda had acknowledged her when it never accepted him, after all, and while that stirs its own bitterness, Vergil doesn't want to dwell on it. The sword is gone now, fused into Dante, and it's best not to linger on why it rejected him.

It's easier to do so here, flying across the road on Trish's motorcycle, the engine's droning filling the silence as he holds on, his thoughts slipping in a comfortable space where they never latch on any one topic and keep flitting until they sink into oblivion.

Trish slams the break and he startles--startles _ awake_, he realises, his hands snapping to her waist before he falls off the bike. They're in a small town, and she veers off into a parking lot and sets a foot down and turns on the bike.

"What the fuck, Vergil? You can't fall asleep while we ride!" 

She's way too close to him like that, and he leans back, gritting his teeth. "I wasn't." 

He absolutely had been, and Trish isn't buying his lie. While she stares him down, he tries to parse what happened. He hasn't slept unless thoroughly exhausted for weeks now, so why would he collapse in such a precarious place? But he remembers the constant roar of the engine, how it filled the silence left behind by Griffon, how Trish's own warmth nearby almost registered as Shadow's. His throat tightens and only pride keeps him from averting his eyes.

"We're stopping here," Trish declares. "I'll find us a motel or something."

"It will be pointless. I won't sleep."

She rolls her eyes and turns back to the bike. "Call it what you want, Vergil, but I'm not driving while you slowly fall off. You might heal it up, but it'd still be a hassle."

"Don't--" He stops her with a hand on her shoulder. He doesn't want to explain in detail, but a hotel would be a waste of time and money. "I'll spend the night staring at the ceiling, then fall asleep behind you the next morning. The motorcycle had that effect on me."

"Seriously? I've been riding it as hard as I can and _ that _got your drowsy?"

He can't tell if she's laughing at him or annoyed. Either way, he has no intention of explaining himself. "I'm afraid so."

"All right. Plan B, then." Trish's voice takes a singsong quality, then her clothes turn a shining white light. He turns away with a hiss, waiting a few seconds for the blinding shine to subside. When he looks back, her outfit has changed. She now has a leather jacket from which hang several straps, long enough to go around his body and then back in front of Trish. Her intentions become immediately clear and he scowls.

"You mean to strap me to your back," he says, allowing the disgust to seep plainly through his voice.

"Like a child, yes!" she declares, laughing.

"I refuse."

Trish's eyes are sparkling in the dim light, mischief illuminating her face. She twirls the long leather belt lazily, her smile widening. "Then find me a plan C, because we'll never get to Red Grave if you threaten to slip off every hour or so."

Vergil's mind remains annoyingly devoid of better ideas. He hates that she's right and this might be the only way forward at a decent pace. What's more humiliating? Falling off on a regular basis because he refuses to admit he can't remain awake on the bike, or accepting to be strapped in such an undignified manner? Neither solutions are things his pride is willing to accept, but he'll have no choice, and one is more efficient than the other. Vergil sighs, eyeing the leather band warily.

"This is absurd.”

His declaration only draws another laugh from her. “It can be our little secret. We’re only being pragmatic about this.”

He huffs. Pragmatic or not, the solution leaves him dissatisfied, to say the least. “Right. Just… do it.”

She grins and faces forward once more, before handing him the leather straps. With a heavy sigh, Vergil passes them around his back and then hands them back to Trish. She tightens them more than he’d expected, like she wants him to be comfortably nestled against him for the entire trip. He can feel the heat in his cheeks, and he decides it’s best not to comment on it. The leather bands dig into his back, but he forces himself to stay straight and not lean onto Trish.

“Let’s get this over with,” he says, and Trish revs up the engine with a laugh. 

“As you wish, milord,” she calls, and from her mouth, no title has ever sounded less polite. 

He can’t help his snicker. “It’s _ my king _to you, demon.”

Her response is half laugh, half offended exclamation. “Don’t you wish.”

The bike flies off, and all Vergil can really think of is that no, he really doesn’t wish at all. Demon King might have a nice right to it, but surely there is more interesting to do with his life than dominate mindless rabble. He doesn’t quite know _ what _ yet, but he’s had his fill of the demon world for a lifetime or two. Salvaging Sparda’s handguns is enough for now. Vergil leans his forehead against Trish’s back, her hair whipping all around him. The wind catches in his coat, too, sending it flying behind them. He can barely hear it snapping above the roaring of the engine, and the cacophony of noise seeps into his mind, calming his thoughts. He’s asleep within minutes of their departure, exhaustion catching up to him at the first opportunity.**  
**

**Author's Note:**

> If you're wonder why Vergil goes "Luce e Ombra", that's 'and' in Italian, and he's too much a fancy mf to use English XD Also I kinda ran with a new headcanon--that Nelo Angelo's armour was literally joined with his body and it left scars behind? And that he secretely loves going shirtless as much as Dante but wants to hide them haha. 
> 
> So hey, this one *doesn't* have a buffer and isn't finished. I have a plan, but I can't quite guarantee when I'll return to it. <.< I don't like leaving things unfinished, though, and they're super interesting to write together. :)


End file.
